Then the year 462 AH began.

Ibn al-Jawzi said (1): Among the events of that year was the following: at the third hour of Tuesday, the eleventh of Jumada al-Awwal—18 March—an immense earthquake struck al-Ramla and its environs. Most of the town was destroyed, its walls collapsed, and the tremor reached Jerusalem, Nablus, and the whole district of Ilyāʾ. The ground in Ilyāʾ caved in, the sea retreated until its bed lay exposed and people walked upon it, after which it surged back; one corner of the Great Mosque of Egypt cracked, and two further shocks followed immediately afterward.

In this year: the Byzantine emperor marched from Constantinople toward Syria with three hundred thousand men. He camped at Manbij, burned the villages between Manbij and the Byzantine frontier, killed their men, and carried off their women. The Muslims of Aleppo and elsewhere were thrown into great alarm. He remained for sixteen days, after which Allah drove him back, humiliated and exhausted, because they had brought scant provisions and most of his army perished of hunger. Praise and thanks belong to Allah alone.

In the same year: the Emir of Mecca, finding his resources straitened, stripped the gold from the Kaʿbah’s hangings, its waterspout, and its door and minted it into dirhams and dinars. The ruler of Medina did likewise with the lamps of the Prophet’s Mosque—upon its inhabitant be the finest blessings and peace.

During this year: a severe rise in prices and a devastating famine befell Egypt. People resorted to eating carrion; a dog sold for five dinars. The elephants died and their carcasses were consumed, and the beasts of burden were eaten until the ruler of Egypt was left with only three horses, though formerly he had possessed a great many. One day the vizier dismounted from his mule; the groom, weakened by hunger, neglected it, whereupon three men seized the animal, slaughtered it, and ate it. They were arrested and crucified, but by morning their bones were bare—the people had eaten their flesh—so they were executed, and their flesh was likewise devoured. Bedouins would bring food and sell it outside the city, not daring to enter lest it be snatched away. No one ventured to bury his dead by day; burials took place secretly at night so that the bodies would not be exhumed and eaten. The ruler of Egypt was reduced to such straits that he sold many of his priceless possessions: eleven coats of mail, twenty thousand gilded swords, eighty thousand large pieces of crystal, and seventy-five thousand lengths of valuable brocade. The clothing of men and women, the embroidered curtains of cradle-swings, real estate, and other treasures were disposed of at rock-bottom prices. Some of these rarities had belonged to the Caliph, having been looted from Baghdad in the days of al-Basāsīrī.

In this year as well: robes of honor, gifts, and presents arrived from Sultan Alp Arslan to the Caliph al-Qāʾim bi-Amr Allāh.